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Tuesday, February 23, 2010

Extraordinary decline of France on gold standard in Great Depression

Did you know that France, Switz. and Benelux were absolutely caned by the Great Depression and competitive devaluations by the British Empire, Germany and Italy and (especially) Japan? No, me neither - but look at p10 graphic in Krugman's class notes. It also explains in part the European Community catch-up economic 'miracle' of 1950-75 (until the Brits arrived or more pertinently, energy got expensive) and pause thereafter - it was rapid growth from the devastation not only of war but of the Gold Standard of 1929-39.
What's the relevance to net neutrality? Almost nothing - except beware of changing course pragmatically in mid-stream and expecting the French to applaud Anglo-Saxon pragmatism.
Oh, and expect a period of continued denial of the reality that EU mobile leadership just doesn't exist...

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